Remembering Tuolumne…..

By Joseph Celentano

TCMM Historical Research Committee

www.TuolumneMuseum.org/rt0103.htm

Formal education has come a long way in Tuolumne since the days of Summersville and Carters.

The Tuolumne City Memorial Museum has a static display model of a schoolroom as it might have looked in Carters way back then.

Carter's one-room public schoolhouse was really outdated by 1903. There were so many mill employees' children that a larger building was needed. When Frank Baker sold his ranch to the timber company in 1897 he had the foresight to retain a small parcel at the ranch's south portion. Mr. Baker "dedicated" this parcel for a school site.

The Summerville Elementary School building was located just south of "South Addition's" Maple Avenue. Part of the school property extended into Block 40. The new building was a cross-shaped plan, located at the southwest corner of Maple and Madrone, on part of the present elementary school grounds. The arms of the cross were four large classrooms pointing in the cardinal directions. At the center was an assembly hall topped by an octagonal tower with a belfry. Mr. Hiatt, the millwright, built the school in 1903. This building was replaced in 1963. A 1908 photograph of the school pictures 267 pupils and five teachers.

Until 1911 the Tuolumne Community had no high school. Children had to commute on the daily Sierra Railway passenger train to Sonora, if their parents wanted them to attend high school. But when the children of Dr. Reid, Mr. Prince and other West Side executives were nearing high school age, their parents decided to keep them closer to home and started a local high school. The first three classes met in a house on the east side of Pine Street north of Fir Avenue. By 1912, the Summerville High School building was completed and occupied. The high school campus was located on the crest of the hill near a large pine tree, at the north end of Pine Street in Blocks 1 and 2. Ellis Field, named after Mr. Fred Ellis, was used as a football stadium. It was situated where the Tuolumne Shopping Center is now located. The land was donated by the West Side Lumber Company. In 1936 a gymnasium was erected on the high school's east side. The property was later sold and renamed Mother Lode Christian School and its use as a private school continues to date. A new Summerville High School campus was built a mile west of Tuolumne.

[Excerpts taken from the soon to be published "Tuolumne Community Context Statement", County of Tuolumne, September 1999.]

And thus, another page turns in the history of Remembering Tuolumne. <rt0103>